Using Zoom with SBC\VDI

Working from home (WFH) requires having a lot of video calls. I noticed a great demand from users that need to attend or organize a video call. The downside is that there are multiple vendors and that a company can’t force everybody only to use one solution. Users receive invitations from multiple organizations, and they all need their own client applications. When using an SBC\VDI based remote workplace, you need to manage all the clients and make sure the video call works great. Luckily, the vendors are working together and making sure that you could have a great experience even when working in a remote session. One of those vendors is Zoom, they have created a client that is created for a VDI deployment. Zoom currently supports Citrix, VMware, and WVD.

How it works

When making a video call the video rendering requires CPU and Memory, when using a multi-session OS this could cause other users to have a degraded performance. The users that are making the video call could notice latency during the call because every moving image has to be rendered and send to the client. To get a better experience Zoom created software that could offload the rendering to the local clients. How is that offloading working?

In most cases, the media plugin will offload the video encoding and decoding and communicates directly to the Zoom cloud, bypassing the VDI infrastructure. All other information is sent over the VDI channel. There are three options:

The three options
The three options
  1. Everything is within the VDI and all the resources are used within the VDI, communication is from the VDi to the Zoom Cloud
    This won’t work with Citrix as described here: https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX270931
  2. Only the Video encoding and decoding are rendered on the client and all communication is going from the Zoom media plugin through the VDI channel to the VDI and from the VDI to the Zoom Cloud.
  3. Most of the communication is going from the Zoom Media Plugin to the Zoom cloud and only the Authentication and window location is going from the Zoom Media Plugin through the VDI channel to the VDI and then connects to the Zoom Cloud.

Installing

Time needed: 15 minutes

Installing the Zoom VDI Installer in your base image and your client.

  1. Download the latest Zoom VDI Installer client and the corresponding Zoom Media Plugin

    https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360041602711
    You need to download Zoom Media Plugin based on the environment you have: Citrix, VMware, or WVD.

  2. Install the Zoom VDI Installer within your VDI

    This is basically a Next,Next,Finish installation.

  3. Install the Zoom Media Plugin on the Client

    To make sure you don’t receive an error when using Zoom, you need to run the installer as an Administrator.
    Close all Citrix, VMware, or WVD clients before starting the installation.
    Then follow the wizard.

Verifying Zoom installation

After installing the Zoom VDI and Zoom Media Plugin, the testing starts. I made a Zoom call with myself. As I’m not so photogenic, I will spare you these images. To give you a good view of how it’s working. First, I made a Zoom call (without video in my session as this isn’t working for Citrix https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX270931), you can see there is 9.7% CPU usage. This isn’t that much, but when there are more people on a VM and you share the CPU, this could be affecting the user experience of other users.

Zoom call without the plugin enabled

Below you can see that that the Zoom client shows it’s not connected to any plugin and is working as a regular Zoom client.

Zoom session without a working plugin
Zoom without VDI plugin connected

After the first test, I installed the Zoom Media Plugin (for Citrix) and made another Zoom call. This time I was able to use my local Webcam (Laptop integrated) and as you could see below the CPU usage is 0% within the Citrix Session (First Image) and uses 8.4% CPU on the local workstation (Second image).

Zoom Session CPU usage within the Citrix Session
Zoom Session CPU usage within the Citrix Session
Zoom Session CPU usage local workstation
Zoom Session CPU usage local workstation

When looking at the statistics within the Zoom client you now see that the Zoom VDI plugin is Connected. The rendering is now completely offloaded to the Clients workstation and this saves you CPU and Memory on the VM (SBCB\VDI) and gives the user a good user experience during the call.

Zoom Media Plugin Connected
Zoom Media Plugin Connected

Features

When using the Zoom VDI client and the Zoom Media Plugin, you don’t have all the features that are available when using the Full Desktop version of Zoom. As this changes with every new release, I advise you to look at the comparison matrix that Zoom created and hopefully kees updated: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360031441671-VDI-client-features-comparison

Tips and Tricks

I will update the Tips and Tricks section if new information is available or I needed to solve an issue that could help you as reader.

Registry Settings

Zoom has a list of Registry Settings that can help you troubleshoot or control the client. Here is a list of all available registry keys: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360032343371

Error Zoom VDI

As mentioned in step 3, if you don’t install the Zoom Plugin on the local device, you could see an error. I only tested with the Citrix Media Plugin and can’t verify if the same happens with VMware or WVD. The error I received is:

Zoom.exe is using NTDLL.dll from an unknown publisher. Are you sure you want to run this software?

Error when Zoom Media Plugin is wrongly installed.
Error when Zoom Media Plugin is wrongly installed.

You could click on Yes as often as you like but that’s not going to work.